European Union Democracy Observatory (EUDO)

The Project

The European Union Democracy Observatory (EUDO) was launched in the spring of 2006 as an independent and interdisciplinary academic organization.  In 2008, EUDO became a fully-integrated part of the Schuman Centre and with a grant from the Research Council of the EUI, and thanks to additional funds made available by the Schuman Centre, EUDO was able to increase its activities and properly establish its infrastructure in 2009. Its declared goals were: to produce a permanent and periodic assessment of democratic practices within the EU; to serve as a forum to exchange ideas and good practices; and to be a resource for policy-makers, academics and EU citizens. 

To fulfill this mission, the EUDO platform consisted of five components: the four EUDO observatories, a yearly dissemination conference, the EUDO forum, the EUDO training platform and the EUDO Data Centre.

• The four EUDO Observatories formed the backbone of EUDO and constituted its main organising principle. They were responsible for data and documentation gathering and were directed by EUI internal professors in conjunction with external EUDO experts. The four Observatories were:
  • the Observatory on Public Opinion, Political Elites and the Media (directed by Alexander H. Trechsel and Mark Franklin);
  • the Observatory on Political Parties and Representation (directed by Peter Mair † and Luciano Bardi); This Observatory was later taken on by the Università di Pisa, where it is currently still deing developed. 
  • the Observatory on Institutional Reform and Change (directed by Adrienne Héritier and Bruno de Witte);
  • the Observatory on Citizenship (directed by Rainer Bauböck and Jo Shaw). In 2017, it was transformed into the Global Citizenship Observatory (GLOBALCIT), as a part of the Global Governace Programme.

• The EUDO dissemination conference took place on a yearly basis in order to disseminate research results and policy expertise in the field of EU democracy.

• The EUDO web forum hosted debates among internal and external EUDO experts on selected, EU democracy-relevant topics

• The EUDO training platform encompassed the hosting of workshops, seminars and lectures by experts from academia and the policy-making community as well as summer schools

• EUDO developed a EUDO Data Centre. a web-based repository for the distribution and dissemination of quantitative and qualitative data and research results produced or acquired by EUDO projects.

In 2018, the European Governance and Politics Programme was born from the ashes of EUDO, building on the work and reputation of its predecessor.

People

Research and Publications